Body Doubling for ADHD: Anxiety Alert or Helpful Productivity Hack? #176
For a long time, body doubling made me want to cringe. I prided myself on being a self-starter. I didn’t need help. And I certainly didn’t want anyone watching me do stuff.
Eep! Perfectionist alert!
Was I totally wrong about body doubling? Could it be a way for ADHD brains to get more done? To feel accomplished? To stay motivated and finish tasks?
Have I found a way to make this work for me or do I still recoil with heebie jeebies? Let’s discuss!
Links mentioned in this episode:
Sandra Coral’s Podcast - Neurodivergent Narratives
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Patricia Sung 00:00
Have you ever been just lost in thought or stuck in ADHD process? And then someone walks in the room and you're like, Oh crap, I was supposed to be doing this the laundry you're supposed to be making dinner. I'm, you know, we're supposed to make that phone call and you like jump in and you get started because you don't want to look like a bump on a log. Me too. Let's discuss. Are you overwhelmed by motherhood and barely keeping your head above water? Are you confused and frustrated by how all the other moms make it look so easy. You can figure out how to manage the chaos in your mind, your home or your family? I get your mama, parenting with ADHD is hard. Here is your permission slip to let go of the Pinterest worthy visions of organization and structure fit for everyone else. Let's do life like our brains do life creatively, lovingly, and with all our might. When we embrace who we are and how our brains work, we can figure out how to live our lives successfully, and in turn, lead our families. Well, at the end of the day, we just want to be good moms. but spoiler alert, you are already a great mom. ADHD does not mean you're doomed to be a hot mess mama, you can rewrite your story from shame spiral to success story. And I'll be right here beside you to cheer you on.
Patricia Sung 01:23
Welcome to motherhood in ADHD. Before we dive into this week's episode, let's read our review of the week. Now I am very excited because I finally figured out how to go view the reviews from other countries because when you go into Apple podcasts, like you can only see where you live. And I figured it out how to go find them took some hunting. And so now I have all these review of the weeks to read from all the people from other countries but from years ago, and this one is from my sweet friend Sandra, who I miss I haven't talked to in a little while she hasn't been super active on Instagram recently. But either way, I miss her in here's her review. It's called so helpful for me. I love how the episodes are so jam packed with great advice and actionable steps. She's really helped me see that there are so many little things I can do. And they've made a big difference in working with my ADHD. Now, I am so honored by this. Also, I'm sad that it's literally taking me like four years to read those reviews from nothing 2019. And since then Sandra has started and only since then it wasn't right before that. I can't remember now exactly when but around this time is when Sandra started her podcast, which is neurodivergent narratives. It is amazing. You should go listen to it. She and I started on this podcast circuit around the same time and I just adore her. So listen to her podcast.
Patricia Sung 02:47
Okay, let's jump into this week's episode. So I was wrong. I admitted I was wrong. For a long time I hated body doubling. It was so dumb, like priding myself and getting my stuff done myself. You know, I'm a self starter I don't need to meet people don't tell me what to do and when to show up. And also like a little bit anxious about other people seeing me do stuff. But this was all a cover up, because I've actually been using it all the time. And I wasn't self aware enough to realize that I was. So what is body dabbling, it's basically like being able to do some kind of task that's difficult or boring, because someone else is there with you. It could be a co worker, it could be a friend who's only your family. But it's a really helpful way for us to stay motivated. And on task, then like a lot of ways it could be, you know, meeting up for coffee and working side by side next to a friend, it can be having your partner there in the kitchen while you work on the taxes. It can be like working on a virtual co working call online, where you're both doing completely different things. But checking in with each other regularly. Like it can be in person or it can be virtual, the point of the bite leveling isn't to collaborate on the tasseling for them to help you do it. It's to have built in accountability that you actually get the thing done.
Patricia Sung 04:13
Now, body definitely isn't like an official term. There's not like a bunch of research on it yet. It's a fairly newer term that like came from the ADHD community. But there are a few ideas about why it's so helpful for us. So first of all, it is proactive, you know how much I think being proactive is really good for our brains. When you're constantly reacting to everything all day long. And you know, you're living in that Whack a Mole lifestyle, then you're just dealing with whatever appears and not what you want to do. Whereas when you choose to party devil and make the plan to do that thing, like at a certain time, you're becoming proactive. They had a study at the Dominican University of California where they found whenever When you write down your goal, you are 42% more likely to achieve it. So bodybuilding kind of layers on that where like you're writing it down, because you're making the plan to go do it. But now you also have like a set time to also get it done. So it makes it more likely that you will actually do the thing because you're planning for it.
Patricia Sung 05:19
There's also like the positive feelings, which increases our motivation, like, when you're dreading something, and you're frustrated by it, and you're just like, do I have to do it, this is where we can get in our head and get overwhelmed and paralyzed with fear. But when we pair the task with like, Oh, I'm excited to go see that friend and like be around them, you're automatically making that thing more enjoyable, where you actually want to show up by increasing all the feel good chemicals running around your brain, they also think that perhaps body devil Inc may activate mirror neurons. So mirror neurons are a part of your brain that fires the same way whether we actually perform the action or we witnessed the action, like, you know, if you ever see somebody, like just like, eat it, they fall like flat on their face, and you like, you feel that sensation of like, oh, that must have her like, those are mirror neurons at work, where you can feel that connection to the activity that you didn't actually do. But scientists think that this kind of like, connects us together with our like, empathy and social connection, like, so when you see your friend sitting next to you getting to work calmly doodoo on her laptop, you see that person that you like, that you trust, perform the action, it's like, oh, okay, like, I can do that too. And it feels more doable. In a few minutes when you like you get off track and realize all sudden, you're like down on Google rabbit hole, and you see that person looking at you. Or like, they kind of like shifting their chair and it catches your attention, like, Alright, I'm supposed to be doing this thing over here. It helps you remember, like, oh, right, this is what I'm doing right?
Patricia Sung 06:55
Now, You can like, infuse the Pomodoro Technique in there of like, you work for 25 minutes, and then you have five minutes to like, chat and enjoy and spend time with that person or grab a cup of coffee. And then dig back in again, like, that person is like a physical reminder of what you need to be doing at that time. Even if they're not doing the same thing as you the fact that they're like they're looking at you, you're like, alright, we're doing this. Now, there are some caveats here. There are some things that you want to look for in your body double like, you want to make sure the person is trustworthy, and they're reliable, like they're actually going to show up on time. And they're not going to cancel the last minute, like obviously life happens, but like, is it a repetitive issue? Are they going to be positive, supportive? Encouraging? Are they going to also be able to stay on task and focused and in calm? And are they non judgmental? Like you feel comfortable around them? And you're not going to be anxious the whole time? Like, are they judging me because I started doing something different. Having that set time set aside, to get something specific done that you'd like to get done, but aren't maybe that excited about is a really great way to motivate yourself forward. Even if you don't get the whole thing done in that time that you set aside. Having that positive momentum or going in the right direction, makes it easier to pick up that project and leader because you have these positive feelings associated with it.
Patricia Sung 08:17
Are you constantly scrambling to get things done? You never seem to have quite enough time to do it all and it feels like you're drinking from a firehose, and then you get mad at yourself because you should have been ready because you knew about that birthday party or that field trip or that vacation for a long time now and yet somehow you still aren't ready. As ADHD moms, we spend a lot of time living reactively you're playing Whack a Mole throughout the day dealing with one emergency or surprise after another. You feel like you don't even have time to catch your breath. This is a really stressful way to live every day. The hard part is it we live in the now not the not now. And all those things the birthday party, the vacation the field trip, they're all not now until suddenly they are now how do you move those things from not now to now before they are emergency. Now by doing some proactive planning every month I look ahead at what's coming up so that my brain recognizes that it's coming soon it brings the knot now into the now temporarily, I'm sharing this tried and true strategy with you. So head over to my website patriciasung.com/monthahead. It's all one word month ahead lowercase letters, and you can download it for free how in just 10-15 minutes, you can walk through what's coming up and help your brain move from reactive to proactive this 10-15 minute activity once a month saves future me hundreds of hours of stress and panic. And I want that for you too. So go to my website patriciasung.com/monthahead and grab your free ADHD friendly strategy which is my secret on how I overcome time blindness and lower your stress a whole bunch future you will thank you so much arch in a couple of weeks. So go grab it now, patriciasung.com/monthahead.
Patricia Sung 10:13
Now, if you listen back to the episode in November, where we're talking about like making goal setting ADHD for link, this is one of the things that I talked about. Accountability is like a really funky word, because it has to be after the fact someone holding you accountable is after the fact. But we don't actually want somebody like coming behind half like after the fact, like, Where were you? What would you do, if you're thrown around, remember, like, that's not what we're looking for. What we want is like a reason to show up to that time. That sounds fun. That sounds great. Sounds positive. This is the whole reason we've been meeting with successful mama meetups is like we spend 30 minutes planning our week. And then we spend 30 minutes hanging out doing something fun. And because you want to hang out with those people, you want to meet other moms who get how you work, you want to feel like you're not the only one who's like this.
Patricia Sung 10:59
Having those positive feelings associated with the meeting makes it like, Hey, I actually want to show up and do these things. I want to invite you there, this is virtual, you can show up on zoom from anywhere in the world. And you don't have to have an official diagnosis. If you suspect that these things might help you then come on. And also there's no homework here. Like, you're never going to get behind. Because there's nothing you need to do outside of the meeting you do what you can do in the time we were together. If you have time to work on it some more leader fine, we don't have to. The whole point here is we're like building the muscle of how do we plan? How do we get ready for the week ahead. As you build that muscle, as you get better and better, it goes faster and faster, it gets easier and easier.
Patricia Sung 11:41
There will be a point where you can schedule your whole week. In that 30 minutes. It actually takes me about 15 minutes of a meeting to plan my week, because I've been doing it for years. But that is possible like that is on the horizon for you to be able to plan your whole week in 1530 minutes. It's like oh, yes, it's possible. And this is where we start by building those muscles. But then in the second half, it's fun, we hang out. It's different every week, because we got HD you gotta make it interesting, right? So like sometimes we hang out in small groups, sometimes we hang out in large groups. Sometimes, like once a month I share on a topic of like, you know, like five to seven minutes and discuss, like, here's my thoughts on this. What do you do that works for you? So like in January, we talked about rest? What does that look like for you? How do you rest not one single moms had I sit and do nothing, no are resting for ADHD is movement based. We do things and our rest and they're still restful, they still recharge us. So it's like this amazing ADHD hive mind where you get 25 ideas of how you could rest that sound way better than doing nothing.
Patricia Sung 12:47
Next month Our theme for successful mobile meetups is listening to yourself and your body. How can you tune in to what matters to you? How do you listen to yourself? A lot of times we spend most of our lives ignoring the signals that from like inside our body because we thought we were wrong. We thought we were picking up the wrong thing. Because everybody around us was telling us something different. So learning to tune into like what do you feel? What do you think is the right answer? How do you know? And like closing in on that information is such a beautiful thing when you can trust yourself and trust your decisions. So that's our theme for March. Right now successful meetups is closed. But it's opening next week for the March theme. So I want you to be there. Come join us go to patricia sung.com/meetup. You can read about it. See if it's your thing. Here's a song Good. Sure. Super fun. Let's go. When you click to enroll, you can drop your name on the waitlist to make sure that you got the information when it opens up next week. Or if you're listening to this after the fact head over there. And it should be open. I decided that I don't want it to be closed. I opened it close it for a while couldn't you make sure everything was working right because like technology, I'll always like some kind of hiccup. But now that it's all running smoothly, like I want it to be open all the time. And through like in each month we have a different theme.
Patricia Sung 14:08
So when you hear a theme that sounds too good to you and like to speak to you jump in, come learn about it. I've got something fun planned for our meeting on March 1, because I'm excited to have so many new moms joining in. And then we're going to be talking about this theme of listening to yourself on March 8. So make sure you signed up by then, so that you can join us for that discussion. Again, that's patriciasung.com./meetup. I'll see you next Wednesday in the meetup successful mama. For more resources, classes and community head over to my website motherhoodinadhd.com